Video: This Baby Elephant Is Going to Be a Soccer Superstar When It Grows Up

Video: This Baby Elephant Is Going to Be a Soccer Superstar When It Grows Up

Because this is exactly what you need on a Friday morning: Watch Donna the baby elephant kick a soccer ball around with her trainers. Awwww!

-Lucia Peters

Meet Donna. Donna is a two-year-old Asian elephant who lives at the ZSL Whipsnade Zoo in the UK. She’s also a budding soccer—sorry, football (she’s British, remember)—star. Think she could give David Beckham a run for his money?

Of course, Donna does have a bit of an advantage over Becks—namely, several additional appendages with which she can kick her oversized ball around. Not only does she use each of her four legs to play the game, but even more impressively, she gets her super flexible trunk in on the action, too.

According to Lee Sambrook, Whipsnade’s assistant curator of elephants, baby elephants are “very similar to young children”: “They like to play and run around and roughhouse,” Sambrook says. “It gives us a great opportunity to just increase our bond with them, really. So we spend a lot of time playing around with them.” Sounds pretty awesome!

Catch Donna in action here!

My favorite part? How happy she looks. Awwww! Think she’ll make a surprise appearance at the 2012 Summer Olympics? The games are in London this year, after all!